Since I signed off the syndicated Peter B. Collins radio show in March, I've been able to zoom out from the close-up view of day-to-day political combat.

On a daily basis, I reflect on the "change we can believe in" that candidate Obama promised us just a year ago. Certainly, the new administration is better than the Bush/Cheney gang on many fronts; and Bush left Obama an economic meltdown and other serious problems that need attention.

But consider:

we still have 135,000 troops and even more contractors in Iraq, with no clear plan or timeline for our exit, just vague promises and the hope that the Iraqis will kick us out next year. Most of the US troops that have left Iraq went to Afghanistan;

the escalation of our presence in Afghanistan is very dangerous, and contradicts some of Obama's own statements about the prospects for "success" there. He had the chance to reverse direction after the election, but chose to double down on the "good war";

the massive interception of domestic electronic communications continues, and the Obama Justice Department has reinforced and expanded on the bad legal precedents set under Bush/Cheney. Most Democrats are silent on this issue, and I see no effort to restore our privacy rights.

Remember how they dubbed Ronnie Reagan the "Teflon president"? Obama seems to have a new and improved coating, I call it "Leftlon," protecting him from challenges from the progressives who helped him beat Hillary for the nomination.

He keeps reaching out to GOP nuts who want to scuttle his tepid health care "reform," refuses to allow investigations while Cheney spits at him regularly, and expects us to trust the Goldman Sachs Alumni Association to fix the economy that they continue to plunder.

Here are two fresh programs I'd like you to check out. You can download each and/or listen online below. One is co-hosted with me by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, featuring NSA expert James Bamford as guest. The other is my exclusive interview with Mark Klein, former AT&T technician turned NSA surveillance program whistleblower...

• Episode #18 is the first episode of The Boiling Frogs, an interview series co-hosted by Sibel Edmonds. Sibel, who was famously "gagged" by the Bush Justice Department, is now speaking quite freely, and our first show features NSA expert James Bamford. He describes the massive scale of domestic surveillance, the complicity of Democrats in legalizing Bush's violations of our 4th Amendment rights, and the bungling of pre-9/11 intel by the spook community, especially the NSA.

• Episode #19 is an exclusive 90-minute conversation with Mark Klein, a former technician at AT&T who exposed the NSA's secret room in San Francisco where they installed a splitter that routes all traffic to the NSA. Klein tells what he discovered, and how big media outlets like 60 Minutes, NY Times and the LA Times spiked or buried his story. The LA Times took his confidential information directly to Intel Czar Negroponte and NSA chief Hayden, then screwed Klein by not running a story and leaving him exposed. Klein also explains how leading Democrats like Sen. Feinstein knew about his revelations, refused to meet with him or allow him to testify, and worked to protect the phone giants and the NSA.

It's obvious - obama works for the same folks, just playing a different roll. When dur chimpfurher was in the White House, his job was to serve the military-industrial/media complex by yanking the dialog to the right and enabling wholesale theft from the public coffers.

Now we see that obama stands for the same fundamental policies and represents the same folks. His job was to represent "change" but to deliver little or none.

It isn't about "giving him time". He has already shown us that he can't be trusted.

Progressives need to get off this bandwagon - it will be difficult, but by taking strong stands AGAINST this administration, perhaps can build enough of a base to demand real change in 2012 and even have a credible candidate in 2016.

The hard work to do so, however, needs to start NOW because otherwise we will just have another tweedle-dum/tweedle dee choice in 2012 and beyond.

Meaningful action will demand boycotting the corpocracy that undermines our democracy and that will take some brave bloggers to organize.

The "superblogs" proclaim it isn't there job - most are just obamabots and represent the interests of a few large organizations/wealthy individuals that underwrite them.

Deeply, deeply disappointed in Obama. Just fucking sick to be, presumably, duped yet again. It was such an exhilarating fantasy, though, wadn't it?

I'm not comfortable with characterizing the spying as a privacy issue, as "intrusion". To my mind, it's a legality and ethics issue.
They broke the law and they're not being held accountable as any other citizen would be. Like you or I would be. I want the fact that broke they goddamn law hammered & hammered & hammered on.
Yeah. Another fantasy.

I hope he can sleep at night and isn't taking what powell said 'everybody' was on during the 1 degree worse than now bush years.. he couldn't possibly ever be nagged by the promises he made he has no intention of keeping. when he said something like 'I will work tirelessly for YOU the people' at the camera he was gazing deep into the loving hearts of his benefactors, goldmanattmonsantoisraeliraqquagmire. things would change, but not much..

you were believed in, and elected mr preznint because you were in fact more commoner than the next white guy. you HAD to be better than the usual pol.. but you weren't. you were exactly the same. it was your hearts desire to be just like the big boys and be accepted..

it always seemed to me black people had to work like twice as hard to achieve the same positions as whites had. you'd think they would buckle down and try to do as much radical good for their minority or anyone that's discriminated against once they were in power for their brief run..

after landing him at least three votes by my nagging people last time not to go with more of the same I feel like a real dupe.

I will totaly vote for mcsame and palin next time around for yuks.
think of the fun we'll have. then you'll see dems with some fire in em. they're in power now of course they have to ease up and play nice!
the PLAY lies in shreds if they tear at the curtains too much..

I'm one progressive who was never on his bandwagon. I think there were quite a number of folks like myself that might have been Kucinich democrats and are very disappointed in the turn the party has taken. I ultimately voted Nader. I knew what was coming with Obama... He's part of the establishment. All one needed to do is look at his voting record and his rhetoric to know what he was going to do. It was very obvious. Unfortunately, there are tons of people voting lesser of two evils and there are others that projected what they thought he was onto him. We all need to watch people's actions, not their words. We also need to be VERY diligent and do our research. You might want to pay particular attention to the voices that the mainstream media blocks out. Why were Kucinich, Gravel, Nader and McKinney blacked out of the media. They still mostly are, although Kucinich occasionally gets a handout. At this rate, I may never vote major party again. Unfortunately, it's so difficult for anyone else to get on the ballot.

Progressives registered as Democrats should walk out on the party. We will not get the Democratic Party in shape for either 2012 or 2016. We need to get serious about forming a coalition third party and finding a consensus candidate among the various progressive groups, the socialists, the independents and the Greens. The trouble is we scatter our shot every election.

OH STOP THE LYING YOU OBAMA BLATHERING LEFTY TARDS - IT IS NOT THE SAME !
IT IS TEN TIMES WORSE!
IT IS A HUNDRED TIMES WORSE!
What we have here is A TOTAL LOSS OF EVERYTHING - INCLUDING COUNTLESS TRILLIONS YOUR NON-ABORTED SEXUAL FLING CHILDREN WILL HAVE TO PAY FOR, IF THEY EVEN HAVE A PERSONAL PAYCHECK BY THE TIME THEY ARE ADULTS!
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This isn't Bush-Cheney light - THIS IS THE NEW WORLD ORDER DEMONIC MASTER - OBAMA THE ABSOLUTE LYING SACK OF TOTAL CRAP YOU IDIOTS FELL FOR !
Aren't you glad they started "collecting data" on "citizens" visiting .gov websites!
ROFLMAO - THEY DON'T STOP AT SECRET TAPS IN AT&T OFFICES- THEY TAKE IT RIGHT OUT ON THE NET ITSELF! TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB ITSELF !!!!!
IT WAS 6 MONTHS BEFORE THEY GOT CAUGHT ! YA KNOW WHAT THEY SAID LIBTARDS ? !?!!
" WE WILL STOP COLLECTING DATA " !
NOT THAT THEY HADN'T DONE IT.
NOT THAT THEY HAD STOPPED.
BUT THAT "THEY WILL".... WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!
BAHWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
USA libtards, the dumbest commie symp useful fools the world has ever known ! EVEN THE RUSSIAN CITIZENS KNEW IT WAS ALL GIGANTIC LOADS OF CRAP - BUT THE USEFUL IDIOTS AMERICA PRODUCES "ARE CONVINCED IT'S REAL AND HAVE BEEN DISAPPOINTED!"
O.M.G.
IDIOT is not anywhere near a strongly descriptive enough word.
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I see " it was a great fantasy, wasn't it ? " LOL
I see " Progressives need to get off this bandwagon - it will be difficult, ..." YES IT WILL - INSANE RAVING FOOLISHNESS COUPLED WITH EXOTHERMIC LYING CHARADES DOES NOT BURN OUT - EVER! YOU HAVE SOLD YOUR SOULS AND NEVER WILL RETURN ! YOU ARE PART OF THE DEMONIC HORDE - THERE IS NO GOING BACK !
You will "hope" till the day you croak.
I see the commie mindset never gives up : " For all those fed up with the BS surrounding Health Care Reform, and the attempts to ‘water it down’, I have set up a petition. "
YES CERTAINLY AFTER THAT 2,000 BILLION OF NEW BUSINESS FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES REPORTED AS AN 80 BILLION DOLLAR STOPLOSS...
YOU SHOULD TRUST YOUR TRAITOR IN CHIEF AND HIS CULLING PANEL ! MAYBE YOU CAN ABORT 50 MILLION BABIES TO SAVE HEALTHCARE COSTS OVER A LIFETIME ?
Oh wait, you'll have to do that again since you've already done it once !
50 million murders !
sorry but that beats the CONGRESSIONAL IRAQ (bush cheney according to liars) war by at least 100 fold!
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Just forget it.
In this "take Obama to task" post, the AUTHOR ran out of complaints very, very quickly, and went into Sibel Edmonds - who whines about the neocons and names them mainly - for her "under bush admin tenure"...
Then we have the "bush wiretapping" whine.
We also have the OBAMA BUTT KISS in the very first paragraph !
" Certainly, the new administration is better than the Bush/Cheney gang on many fronts; and Bush left Obama an economic meltdown and other serious problems that need attention."
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Ahh yes, Obama so much better on so many fronts, NONE OF THEM ACTUALLY NAMED, BUT THE BRAINWASHING IS SO ABSOLUTELY COMPLETE, A NUCLEAR BOMB COULD NOT DISLODGE THAT IDEATION.
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Now note that when OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH CHENEY - BUSH CHENEY MUST STILL BE BLAMED WHILE OBAMA GETS A 3 OR 4 WORD PASS!
" the Obama Justice Department has reinforced and expanded on the bad legal precedents set under Bush/Cheney...."
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IF BUSH HAD EXPANDED, WE WOULD HAVE NEVER HEARD THE END OF THE CASSES, THE PLAYERS, THE NAMES, AND YOU IDIOTS WOULD BE SCREAMING FOR THE LYNCHING (does the word ASHCROFT ring a bell ?) of the AG !
Libtards are so totally UNFAIR, BIASED, INSANE, and INCAPABLE of policing their own.
ABSOLUTELY INCAPABLE.

The TITLE of the article is a LIE even under it's own information in the text: " " the Obama Justice Department has reinforced and expanded on the bad legal precedents set ..."
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IN OTHER WORDS ! THE TITLE SHOULD HAVE BEEN
" WIDER SPREAD DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE EXPANDS UNDER OBAMA !!!! OBAMA WORSE THAN BUSH !!! "
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But, we know, you cannot possibly be honest, even when you're trying to "attack hope and change" it's ALL BUSH'S FAULT.... every time you mention an Obama fault it is preceded or followed by the words BUSH ADMINISTRATION or the like.
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I simply cannot STAND it - and have absolutely ZERO HOPE in you people and your kind restoring ANY RIGHT ANYONE HAS EVER HAD YANKED AWAY- EVER !!!!!
As big a pile of liars as the politicians themselves - it just doesn't cut it !